It Takes Three to Sing a Duet
by Sameuspegasus
Summary: Santana wants Brittany back. She sees how Sam and Blaine look at each other, and plays to her strengths. Plotting and manipulation. Blam!, Brittana.


Santana felt a pang of longing in her chest as she looked across the room at Brittany. It had been a mistake coming back to Lima. All it had done was remind her of how lonely and unsuccessful she felt in New York. Rachel and Kurt were alright underneath the craziness (way underneath it), but they would never replace Britt. Britt, who was so beautiful and kind-hearted and unique. Britt, who was currently giggling into Trouty Mouth's neck as he did one of his stupid impressions. Santana had no idea who it was meant to be, and she was pretty sure Brittany didn't either. Blaine Warbler seemed to get it, though, because he laughed.

The trouble was that Santana actually liked Trouty Mouth. He was like a puppy, only stupider. It wouldn't be right to destroy him. Anyway, Brittany liked him, too. Hurting him would only push her away. No, Santana couldn't bring him down. What she had to do was get them to come to a mutual decision to break up amicably, and then Brittany would come back to where she belonged, and Sam could find his own person to help him cross the street.

For now, Santana would just have to enjoy the party, be Brittany's best friend, and come up with a plan. She got up and pushed her way through the new, uninteresting members of Glee, to where Britt was dancing with Sam and Tina was throwing herself embarrassingly at the flaming acapella dreamboat, who didn't seem to have realised what was happening. Blaine was so bad at picking that kind of thing up Santana almost felt sorry for him.

And then she saw it. The look. She knew that look from all those years she'd secretly been in love with Brittany. The involuntary look that flashed across your face before you could stop it when all you wanted to do was scream "Get off my girlfriend!" at four-eyed cripples with stupid haircuts. And it was all over Sam's face as he watched Tina use Blaine as a stripper pole. Santana smiled to herself. Sam was jealous. She had a sudden flashback to a party two years ago when Blaine had got drunk enough to be into Rachel. Maybe if Blaine made out with Tina, it would rouse those caveman instincts floating somewhere deep in Guppy Face's empty head, and that would solve all of Santana's problems. Her smirk widened. Blaine would be a good person to help Sam cross the street. He was freakishly good at everything, and Sam could return the favour by weaning him off his addiction to embarrassing public serenades and terrifying amounts of hair gel.

Sam had turned his attention back to Brittany, who was twirling him happily to the music. No, bringing out Blaine's drunken bisexuality tonight wouldn't work; they weren't there yet. This plan needed a build up. And Santana had just the way to do it. She danced over to Blaine and Tina, joining their little group, taking note of the relief flashing across Sam's face as Tina backed off. Santana smirked. All she needed to do was talk to Finn and Mr Schue, and she could get this plan started at the next Glee practice.

XXX

"Welcome back, Santana," Mr Schue led a round of applause, "Santana will be acting as a guest coach for the next few weeks. I'll let her tell you about this week's lesson. Santana." He gestured for her to take the floor.

"Congratulations, guys," Santana said, "You've made it to the time of year when you embarrass yourselves by singing clichéd romantic ballads to people you're going to break up with next week, or participating in contrived tributes to artists most of you only care about because people say you should. So this week, you're doing duets. But this time you have to pick a song about something you like outside of Glee Club. And I'm picking the pairs." She turned and wrote on the whiteboard: NO NAUSEATING LOVE SONGS. "First pair: Trouty Mouth and Frodo Hair-helmet. Second pair: Brittany and Tina. Third pair: Dirty Hippie and Quinn Lite..."

XXX

The next day, Britt called her after school to invite her shopping.

"Aren't you meant to be doing something with Sam?" Santana asked when they met up.

"Sam and Blaine are working on their duet for Glee," Brittany said happily, linking her little finger through Santana's and pulling her into a clothing shop, "Anyway, you're my best friend. I'd rather go shopping with you. Come on, help me pick costumes for Tina and my duet."

"What are you guys doing?"

"Cats," said Brittany. "Lord Tubbington's a really good dancer."

Santana spent two hours helping Britt pick out the perfect bowtie for her cat, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd had that much fun.

XXX

"Hey, Santana," Blaine and Sam accosted her in the hallway as she left the choir room the next day. Apparently Mr Schue took this guest coaching thing really seriously. He was making her check in with all the groups to see how they were doing. Artie and Unique were doing a mash up of "Halo" and "Killer Queen". It was going to be terrible. "Can you help us with our song for the week? We need a strong female voice."

Santana smiled sweetly. This was exactly what she'd been hoping for. Now she could throw them together at every opportunity until they realised they were in love with each other and Sam needed to break up with Brittany.

"Are you planning something evil?" Blaine asked as they headed out of school to practice at his place. "You're being weirdly nice."

Blaine's house was big and clean and expensive-looking. There was a garage full of vintage cars ("I restored that one," Blaine pointed it out as they went past, into the house.), a living room with a state-of-the-art home theatre system, and a music room nicer than the one at McKinley. Apparently playing one instrument wasn't enough for Mr Freakishly Good at Everything, because in addition to the piano there were three different guitars, a drum kit, and a violin.

"Do you play all those?" Santana asked. She'd never seen him play guitar, even when all the boys brought theirs out at school.

Blaine had the grace to look embarrassed. "Not very well," he mumbled, "I couldn't keep up with Sam or Puck. And the drums are Cooper's."

"What about this?" She pointed at the violin. Violins were sexy. Even she got a few tingles in her lady loins when she saw a guy play one. It was guaranteed to have the same effect on Sam.

"We don't need it for this song," Blaine didn't take the bait. "Ok, Santana, let me just find the music for your part, and then we can get started."

Sam came over to join Santana in inspecting the violin. "Dude, this is so cool. Why didn't you tell anyone you could play all this stuff?"

Blaine handed Santana some sheets of music. "I didn't want to show off," he said awkwardly.

Santana laughed. "So the last two years, you haven't been showing off?" Imagine how jealous Finn would have been if Blaine had taken over his drumming, too.

"Can you play some for us? We won't think you're showing off, I swear," Sam looked hopeful. Oh yeah, guys playing musical instruments would definitely have the same effect on him.

Blaine looked torn.

"Oh, come on, Blaine. We all know you're an attention whore who gets off on impressing people. Don't pretend you're not just dying to see us go all starry eyed and stupid listening to you play," Santana goaded him.

"I am not," Blaine protested, utterly failing to hide how much he wanted to show off. Blaine thrived on praise. It was kind of sad how much he needed people to like him.

"You kind of are, bro," Sam held out the violin, with a smile that made even Santana's ice cold heart melt a little, "But we love you anyway."

Blaine was incredible. He played something Santana didn't recognise, slow and sweet, that made her think of loneliness and long, dark nights. A strange, choked feeling rose in her throat, and she completely forgot to watch Sam's reaction.

"Okay, stop," Santana held up her hands, "What are you trying to do, drive us to suicide?"

Without pausing, Blaine segued into a cheerful, bouncing jig, sawing the bow so vigorously his hair started to escape the gel. He finished with a flourish, and Santana and Sam broke into applause. After a few seconds, Santana reined herself in, realising she was wearing the same dazed, gooey eyed look that Tina and Coach Beiste and Miss Pillsbury got when Blaine performed. She glanced across at Sam, who was wearing an even more ridiculous expression. The guy was practically drooling. Excellent. That was confirmed crushage on Sam's part. Now what about Blaine?

"You're a freak of nature," Santana told Blaine, "Is there anything you aren't good at? I mean aside from picking a hairstyle that doesn't make you look like you've dipped your head in a bucket of glue."

"And being tall," added Sam.

Blaine mock-glared at Sam and punched him lightly on the arm, and they leaned into each other, laughing. Omigod, they were flirting. Or were they? It was really hard to tell with Blaine. When he wasn't wallowing in overdramatic despair about his break-up with Kurt, he kind of flirted all the time. No one was exempt. Men, women, cameras, dogs, chairs, they were all the same. Give him an audience and he'd have them falling in love within seconds. But Santana was pretty sure this was real.

"Oh, save the dirty, dirty eye sex for when I'm not in the room," Santana snapped, a statement calculated to point out the sexual tension, but not let on she approved. Nothing would stop them getting together sooner than them finding out she wanted them to. "Are we doing this song or what?"

If she'd known beforehand that they needed her to be Hermione in their weirdo Harry Potter song, she would have left them to muddle through on their own.

XXX

"Can I tell you a secret?" Brittany was stretched out on her bed, stroking Lord Tubbington.

"Sure," Santana replied from Brittany's vanity, where she was reapplying her lipstick and deliberately not checking out Britt's legs in the mirror.

"Sometimes I wish Sam was a little bit meaner."

"What do you mean? Britt, you shouldn't want your boyfriend to be mean to you."

"No, it's just people always push in front of us in the line at the movie theatre. Sometimes we miss the movie. People never did that when I was with you. And we can never think of any comebacks when people say we're stupid."

Santana felt full-on protective bitch mode coming on. "Who's been calling you stupid?"

"That new Warbler, the one who keeps trying to get Blaine to rejoin. He asked Blaine if he was sick of helping his pet idiots tie their shoes, which was a stupid thing to say, because Blaine never ties our shoes for us. Sam's really good at tying shoes, because he gets a lot of practice tying his little brother and sister's, and mine are Velcro, so I don't have to tie them."

"What did you do?" Santana moved to sit by Britt on the bed, mentally plotting revenge on the evil Warbler.

"I tried to think of a comeback, but I couldn't, and Sam just looked really sad, because sometimes he thinks he's dumb even though he's not. Then Blaine said something really smart which I didn't understand and the Warbler went away."

There was a perfect example of why Brittany needed Santana. Blaine wasn't always going to be there to come up with clever private school related insults when Britt and Trouty Mouth were on a date, and Brittany needed to be with someone willing to Bitch Slap the haters into next week. And Sam might not be able to keep up with a quick fire battle of wits, but he could hold his own in a fistfight, should his tiny, cardigan wearing protector come to blows with someone three times his size again.

Santana patted Brittany comfortingly on the back. "If he comes near you again, I'll show him how we do it in Lima Heights."

XXX

The next day she headed back to Blaine's for rehearsal.

Sam was already there when she arrived, strumming away at his guitar while Blaine showed Santana in.

"We need to talk about costumes," Blaine announced.

Santana fought the urge to flee. This was going to be bad. Very bad. She had a feeling the costumes were not going to be sexy at all. If she wasn't committed to getting Britt back, she would just tell them exactly what she thought about dressing up as a nerdy chick from a children's movie, but if her plan was going to work, she'd have to let them completely ruin her image.

Sam set his guitar aside and looked attentive.

"Now, are we going pre- or post- Yule Ball for Hermione?" Blaine asked seriously, touching Santana's hair.

"What's the Yule Ball?" Santana asked.

Sam and Blaine froze, horrified. "I'll be right back," Blaine said, hurrying out of the room.

Santana got up and sat Sam down in her seat. "So, Sammy Evans, are you treating my girl Britt right?"

Sam nodded nervously. "Are you going to kill me and steal my life, now?"

"Much as I wish I could spend half my life in the gym, lifting medicine balls in my enormous mouth, and the other half playing Lord of the Rings with a particularly dapper hobbit, I'll pass on that, Froggy Lips. Now, we both know you and Brittany won't survive in this world without help, so I'm here to tell you-"

At that moment, the door opened and Blaine rushed back into the room, his arms full of books. He placed them carefully on the desk and brought the thinnest one over to her. "If you're going to do Hermione justice, you're going to need to read the books. This is the first one. You can start it while Sam and I discuss costumes."

"You want me to read seven children's books about wizards so I can sing one verse of a stupid song about it?"

"Hermione's character develops over the course of the series. You can't expect to fully understand her without reading all the books."

"Fine," Santana snatched the book from him and went to sit down, keeping one eye on the boys as they started talking about costumes.

"You'll be an awesome Harry," Sam told Blaine, "All we need is to find you some glasses and draw a little scar on your head." Santana hid a smile behind her book as Sam traced a lightning bolt on Blaine's forehead with his finger. "Oh, and mess up your hair." He ruffled Blaine's hair, or to be more exact, slid his hand across the shiny surface of Blaine's hair, trying to make the solid mass move. That was when Santana really knew Blaine had feelings for Sam. Maybe was even in love with him. Because Blaine didn't dodge. Didn't even complain. Just stood there and let Sam mess up his hair, with this dreamy little smile on his face.

Ok, confirmed mutual crushage meant stage two of the plan could go into action. She stood up abruptly. "How do you expect me to read this? I can't concentrate with all this flirting going on. Go into the bathroom and wash the gunk out of his hair, rub carrots on Sam's head, and do whatever else you need to do for hair and make-up, and leave me alone for an hour to finish this thing."

Blaine looked at her suspiciously. "How do we know you're really reading it, if we can't see you?"

"You can quiz me after." She shoved them in the direction of the bathroom as they looked at each other, eyes lighting up. She could already see their nerdy little brains churning, working on questions to trip her up. Maybe this wasn't such a good plan. Now she'd actually have to read the book if she expected them to keep her in the group.

The second the two boys were in the bathroom, Santana pulled the door shut and tied the doorknob to the one across the hallway, so the door couldn't be opened from the inside. She sat down beside the door to listen, and began to skim through the book.

She couldn't hear very much. Blaine's house had solid walls. There was water running, and some laughing, muffled voices talking. Santana concentrated on the book, and trusted to the tried and true technique of locking people in a small room together until they realised their feelings.

Harry had just received the invisibility cloak for Christmas when the door handle started jiggling. She ignored it. Give them a bit longer.

"Santana, we know you're out there," Sam banged on the door.

Santana turned a page.

"Santana, you better be out there," Blaine joined in, "My parents don't get home for another two weeks. We'll starve."

"I'm not finished the book. I'm sure you guys can find something to do in there for another hour."

"Like what?"

"Give each other makeovers. Have a shower. Sing a duet. Make out."

The banging stopped. Sam and Blaine stopped shouting and had some kind of discussion in voices too quiet for Santana to hear through the door. Then the singing started. Santana sighed. Really, guys? Out of those options, you pick 'sing a duet'? Maybe the bathroom wasn't small enough. There was an equipment cupboard in the auditorium at McKinley. That might work better. She turned her attention back to her book.

She finally let them out because she needed to pee, and didn't want to get lost and starve to death wandering Blaine's gigantic house in search of a second bathroom. They both glared at her, pretending to be mad, even though by the sound of things they'd had a great time in there, if not quite sticking exactly to the plan.

"I'm sorry, I can't take your anger seriously. You look like a ginger farmer and his pet alpaca," Santana snorted. She had to applaud their commitment. Sam had actually coloured his hair red. It didn't suit him. And Blaine, well, who would have known the boy had so much hair on him. It was wild and fluffy. Santana had to restrain herself from reaching out to touch it so she could see it spring back into place. He had a small red lightning scar drawn on his forehead in lipstick, barely visible under the fro.

"Alpacas are fierce," Sam informed her.

Blaine took the highroad and didn't respond. "We worked out your costume," he told her, "We'll quiz you on the first book while you try it on."

XXX

Over the next two days, Santana managed to lock them in the equipment cupboard in the auditorium, Blaine's bedroom, and the showers at the school gym. They came out of the cupboard looking flushed and awkward, trying not to look at each other. When she locked them in Blaine's bedroom, they didn't even notice because they were talking about Blaine's comic book collection, which was disturbingly large and well-organised. She didn't actually lock them in the showers, so much as steal their clothes. When she took finally took pity on them and had a freshman go in with towels so they could venture out in the corridors in search of their clothes, she found the trick had had two effects. The first was that each of them was definitely thinking about the other naked, and the second was that they thought the hockey team had done it, and bonded over planning their revenge.

When Blaine finally announced that the song was ready, and she'd passed the quiz on the first three books, she insisted they go out to celebrate that tomorrow she was escaping the cringe-worthy nerd fest that was Sam and Blaine's lives.

"Dinner at Breadstix," she insisted, then added, "on Blaine," so the suggestion wouldn't raise suspicion. If they thought she was in it for a free dinner, they wouldn't suspect her of other motives. "Dress nice. It's embarrassing enough being seen in public with you without people thinking I'm a farmer's wife."

They looked at her sideways, but the lure of Breadstix was too much, and they agreed.

Now for stage three: Get Britt to see how cute they were together (not that Santana would ever admit to thinking they were sweet), and make Tina jealous.

She called Brittany and Tina, getting them to meet her at a coffee shop across from Breadstix to talk about their cat performance, which they were putting on the next day after school, to be followed by all the other pairs.

Picking a table in the coffee shop with a good view of the door to Breadstix, she sat down and sipped her coffee. She waited until she saw Blaine arrive, and then Sam. Happily, they had both taken her advice, and weren't dressed as Harry Potter characters or superheroes. Blaine was wearing a red bowtie and a year's supply of hair gel, and Sam was wearing a nice blue shirt that Santana was fairly sure Blaine had picked for him. The red hair was still horrendous, but that would wash out in a few days. They waited around for a few minutes and then were ushered in to the restaurant, obviously deciding to wait at the table for her.

She waited until she saw them sit at the table she had reserved for them, perfectly situated in the window for easy spying. Once the waiter had brought them their first basket of breadsticks, she sent Sam a text saying she wasn't coming.

Sam and Blaine stayed in the restaurant, obviously deciding they might as well eat, since they had bothered coming all this way, just as Santana had planned it. She waved the waitress over to complain about the quality of the coffee she'd just drunk, making her replace it for free. By the time her second coffee arrived, Sam and Blaine were leaning towards each other across the table, chatting animatedly about something. She could tell by the way their eyes lit up and bright grins appeared on their faces that if she'd been there, she would have been seriously thinking about drowning herself in a vat of carbonara sauce.

Blaine's got a killer smile when he means it. It's blinding. Santana's seen it more in the last few days of hanging out with Blaine and Sam, playing dress-up and singing songs about wizards, than she saw it the whole time was with Kurt. Maybe it's because she didn't hang out with Kurt and Blaine much outside of glee and bonding over gayness, or maybe she just wasn't paying attention, but she thinks not. She's pretty sure it's to do with Sam being willing to have six-hour long conversations about X-men with him, complete with acting out scenes from the movies and arguments about who gets to be Wolverine.

Brittany arrived a few moments later, greeting Santana with a wide smile and sitting down opposite her.

"Hey, look, it's Sam and Blaine!" Brittany pointed them out, "We should go say Hi."

"The songs are meant to be secret, Britt. If we go over there, they'll know what you're doing." Britt was wearing a black catsuit, complete with fluffy tail and cat-ear headband.

"That's true," Britt acknowledged, "They look like they're having fun without us anyway. Doesn't Sam have a sweet smile?"

Sam and Blaine were laughing at something Sam had said. He really did have a sweet smile. He was a sweet guy. Which was why he and Brittany could never work out in the end. That much sweetness in one relationship could only end with them staying in Lima, repeating senior year forever, and Sam taking up stripping again to support them until his body image issues and lack of self esteem rose up to bite him and destroyed the shiny happy place that Brittany lived in. Call her sentimental, but she wanted to preserve Sam's smile and Brittany's special place.

Brittany looked speculative as Sam reached across the table and stole a forkful of Blaine's meal. "They look happy. Do you think they're going to go home and get their sweet boy kisses on after?"

Tina arrived, interrupting Santana's reply. "I am so ready for this! We're going to win this week's challenge," she announced, high-fiving Brittany. "What are you looking at?" She followed their gaze across the street. "Oh."

Santana almost felt bad as she watched Tina's face fall. Almost. But not really, because a sharp reminder about boundaries and the meaning of the word homosexual was exactly what Tina needed. She was going full on crazy-person and needed to be stopped.

"What's going on there? Are they on a date?" Tina's voice rose to almost a screech. Controlling herself, she said in a calmer voice, "I mean, I'm just angry because Sam's your boyfriend, Brittany. He shouldn't be touching Blaine like that."

Santana snorted. "Do you really think you're fooling anyone?" She said scornfully. "Your insane stalker crush on Blaine is excruciating to watch. Newsflash, Tina! He's gay! Well, except that one time he and Rachel made out at Rachel's party. But everyone knows you'll never be Rachel."

Tina rounded on her, glaring. "I'm every bit as good as Rachel. And Blaine loves me, you'll see."

Across the road, Sam and Blaine clinked glasses.

"Let's talk about your duet," said Santana. Stage three accomplished. Time to get going before Sam and Blaine came out and saw her or Tina got it into her head to march over and claw Sam's eyes out.

XXX

The next day was performance day. Santana had recruited Coach Beiste as guest judge, to keep up the façade of a competition, even though they all knew in the end Mr Schue would simply announce everyone was a winner and remind them that the important thing was that they were a team, so he wouldn't have to admit that some people were better than others.

Artie and Unique went first. Their mash-up of Beyonce's "Halo" and Queen's "Killer Queen" was every bit as brain-meltingly awful as Santana had been expecting. Despite the fact that both of them had decent voices and dance moves, some songs just don't mix. Plus, she was pretty sure neither of them had listened to the lyrics of either song.

Similarly, Puckerman junior and Sugar didn't seem to mesh well, while Teen Jesus and the new Cheerio sang a Christian Rock song Santana didn't know, with lyrics an eight year old could have written.

Brittany and Tina were awesome, of course. Lord Tubbington's dancing mostly consisted of sitting on the choir room floor, trying to lick himself but not being able to reach, while Britt and Tina danced around him, but Santana planned to tell Brittany how impressed she was with his rhythmic tongue flicking.

Finally, it was time for Sam and Blaine's performance. The whole club was looking a little depressed about the quality of the performances so far, while Blaine was practically vibrating with contained excitement. His wizard hair was hidden under a hat that would have made Kurt proud.

They dragged Santana out of the room to get ready. Santana sighed as she let Blaine tie her Gryffindor tie and quickly tease her hair out. He and Sam were already wearing their shirts and ties, simply taking off their jackets. Santana smiled knowingly as Blaine straightened Sam's tie for him and Sam drew a lightning bolt on Blaine's forehead.

"Remember, I'm doing this under protest," she told them.

Blaine put his glasses on and grinned at her. "You love it."

Back in the choir room, Santana took in the amused and incredulous expressions of the glee club as they saw the costumes. This was going to be so bad for her street cred.

But she did it anyway, because some things were more important than her reputation, and Sam and Blaine were so excited when they introduced it.

It was totally awesome.

But she was never going to tell them that.

XXX

It was time for the final part of the mission. There was a celebratory party at Sugar's that night. It hadn't taken much manipulation to get it to happen. All she'd had to do was make a passing comment, and Sugar took over from there.

She made her special punch for the party. Half a glass of that and Tina would be tackling the sockless wonder to the floor, and Blaine would be thinking she looked pretty good. All Santana had to do was make sure Trouty Mouth was around to see it.

She went to stand with Sam and Brittany while she waited for her plan. They were having a conversation that could only be followed by people with brains that operated on the unusual system that Sam and Brittany's brains worked on, where each statement seemed entirely random and unconnected to the previous one to anyone with a normal thought process. Santana gave up on following it after a few minutes, and concentrated on watching Blaine and Tina out of the corner of her eye.

They were laughing at something, dancing close together. Clearly, the punch was taking hold. She saw Blaine lean in to say something into Tina's ear. His hair was escaping the gel he'd put in it after the performance. It suited him. The escaping curls reminded her of the bursts of personality that came out of Blaine when he was excited about something. Tina giggled and whispered something back, before pushing him back onto the couch.

The conversation beside Santana faltered as Sam caught sight out Tina climbing into Blaine's lap. Actually, the conversation of the whole room faltered. People stared at the pair of them, who were too wrapped up in each other to notice.

Oh yeah, Blaine was definitely a little bit bi when he was drunk. He stretched up to kiss Tina.

Santana was starting to think her plan might have worked a little too well. Blaine was way more into it than she'd been expecting, and Tina, well she'd been dreaming of this for months.

Gradually the conversations began to pick up again, people starting to dance once more.

Tina pulled Blaine's tie off and discarded it.

Santana looked at Sam, who had given up any pretence of ignoring them and was openly glaring at Tina.

"I thought Blaine only liked boys," Brittany said, "Otherwise I would have done that by now."

Tina undid the top button of Blaine's shirt.

"You okay, Trouty Mouth?" Santana said.

Tina undid the next button.

"What's wrong, Sam?" Britt asked, "You look the way Santana used to when… oh."

Blaine ran his hand down Tina's back.

"Go stop them, Sam," Brittany ordered.

Sam ripped his eyes away from the scene on the couch to look at his girlfriend, a torn expression on his face. "Britt, I…"

Brittany gave him a little smile. "You love Blaine. I know, because I'm a genius. And you two will make beautiful man-babies."

"I'm really sorry, Brittany," Sam said, "I still love you, just…"

Tina tugged Blaine's neatly tucked shirt out.

"Okay, that's it," Santana shoved Sam in the direction on the couch.

"Take pictures," Brittany called.

Santana pulled Britt into a one armed hug, letting her best friend rest her head against her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Britt-Britt."

Sam marched over to Blaine and Tina, his oversized mouth a tight line. "Get off him," he ordered Tina, with enough authority to make her look up. "Now."

"Sam?" Blaine was breathless, his hair messed up and his shirt rumpled. He gently pushed Tina back, looking both guilty and hopeful.

Tina looked reluctant to move.

"I said get off!" Santana was impressed. She hadn't known Guppy Face could be that scary. "Stop touching him."

Tina got off, her eyes filling with tears. "So you _are_ secretly together, then?"

Blaine's eyes widened.

"Um," said Sam.

"Okay, I can't handle this anymore," Artie rolled up and took Tina's hand. "Tina, come with me. You and you," he pointed to Sam and then Blaine, "go out there and talk." He gestured to the balcony.

"Umurmble," Sam mumbled, going red. He held his hand out to help Blaine up.

Santana watched with satisfaction as they headed outside for a conversation full of metaphors involving Batman and Robin and Frodo and Sam, while Artie led Tina over to the other side of the room to cheer her up.

Brittany took her hand and dragged her over to the dance floor. "I'm glad you're here, Santana," she said.

"I'll never stop being your friend," Santana replied. "I'm sorry about Sam."

Brittany smiled at her. "Sam's still my spirit animal," she said, "I sort of already thought he and Blaine wanted to get their man-love on. He gets this look on his face when he talks about him."

Santana smiled back. "You can always call me if you get lonely."

Sam and Blaine didn't reappear for the rest of the party.


End file.
